Pride and Joy
by lionesseyes13
Summary: After killing his father and grandparents, Tom Riddle visits his mother's grave. Rated T for safety.


Author's Note: I purposely left "Riddle" off of the tombstone inscription. I figured the Riddles would never have paid for a tombstone for Merope, and her father wouldn't have wanted to put the Muggle name on. This is set after Voldemort murdered his father and paternal grandparents.

Reviews: Please feel free to review. I appreciate all feedback.

Pride and Joy

Tom Riddle strode along the graveled lane, his black cloak whipping around him in the autumn gusts. It was nearly dark, and the sky was overcast. He'd need to light his wand to see where he was going shortly. He didn't care if any Muggles saw him. Let the Ministry muck about with them if they wished. It wasn't that he wanted to publicly flaunt the Statute of Secrecy. No, it was simply that he couldn't be bothered to adjust his behavior for the stupid, mewling Muggle worms.

The ring was hot on his finger, echoing the blood that coursed through his veins that was propelled hard and fast in the wake of his stunning triumph. He had done it! He had taken the first step toward creating a Horcrux. The moment of victory, the look of abject horror on his father's face, the heart-stopping shriek of his grandmother... all of it was etched forever more into his memory, a monument to his brilliance.

He'd always known that he was special, and not like those feeble, worthless cankers he'd had to spend the first eleven years of his life with. Now, though, he knew that he was special among wizards, too. That is, he was better, stronger, and more focused than them. There was nothing he couldn't do, and he could count less than a handful of living wizards who might compare to him. But he had the advantage over them, now, as well: he was on his way to immortality.

The wind was picking up, raising dry, brown leaves in tight eddies around him. He could smell the graveyard—mossy, damp, rich, and loamy-- from here. When he was younger, he used to be afraid of graveyards not because of the bones or the spirits, but because he feared the Earth's pull on him. Since he was little, he'd been aware of the mortality of his flesh, and had felt the beginnings of decay. Even when he became a wizard, the knowledge that he would one day perish rested heavily on him, as there was only so much that potions could do. They, too, were of the Earth. However, this little twinkling jewel beating on his finger had the power to keep him alive, regardless of what happened to its fleshy host.

The giant old oak dominated the cemetery, its trunk dark and jagged, and its black limbs grasping for the souls of the living who dared to enter its kingdom. Tom wasn't impressed by it. His soul was safe now. He rubbed the pad of his thumb over the glassy surface of the gem on his finger and was comforted.

He walked in a straight diagonal across the lawn, his boots sinking into the soft, soggy ground as he trode over the faces of the unknown and insignificant Muggles buried there. It was night now, and he took out his wand, for the tombstone he sought was probably unremarkable and indistinguishable from the hundreds of others around it. After all, his mother had been a weak and insignificant creature who would have been utterly unworthy of giving birth to someone as powerful as himself if it hadn't been for the fact that she was descended from Salazar Slytherin.

"Lumos!" he rasped, and the tip of his wand flared. Shadows jumped crazily on the tombstones, making gargoyles out of cherubs. Confidently, he moved past a grave marker leaning toward him at a dangerous angle, and finally stopped in front of a shoulder-high tablet that was covered with lichen and bird droppings.

As he held his wand close to the tomb, the wind slashed his hair across his face. The engraving was already half worn away in the cheap limestone:

MEROPE GAUNT

1890-1926

When he read the name, Tom's eyes gleamed in the magical light he had created.

"I've done it, Mother," he told her, the blood pounding louder in his veins. "I've avenged you on the vermin who rejected you. Not for your sake. You were weak. You didn't know what power you had at your disposal. That was your mistake. But I know it. I, your son, Lord Voldemort, know it. Behold!" With that, he thrust his fist at the gravestone. "If you had known this secret, you could have lived forever. What is your whimpering, weak Muggle lover to eternity? Nothing. Now, he is a pile of oozing flesh fit only to be eaten by maggots and reduced to the base earth from which he came. If you had been able to see beyond your own faint female heart, you might have ruled at my side. You would have been a Lord's queen, Mother. Look what you gave it all up for," he spat in disgust, gesturing around the empty cemetery. "This is your eternity--surrounded by Muggles and dirt."

"I have learned from your mistakes, Mother," he concluded softly. "That is your legacy along with the magic you infused me with. That is the only reason I allow you to rest here in peace, and not destroy you utterly. It is my gift to you. Good-bye, Mother. I will not visit again."

He turned and left, a shadow among shadows.


End file.
